pure tone average

pure tone av·er·age

(pyūr tōn av'răj')

The average hearing threshold level for the pure tone frequencies of 500 Hz, 1 kHz, and 2 kHz. These frequencies are referred to as speech frequencies because many of the English phonemes are within this frequency range. The pure tone average is a reliable indicator of the dB level at which a listener can hear speech.

Two metrics commonly used to define hearing loss in terms of pure tone thresholds are the traditional pure tone average (PTA) of thresholds at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 Hz and the high-frequency PTA (HFPTA) of thresholds at 1,000, 2,000, and 4,000 Hz [19].

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